


Asking For It

by Lynds



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Established Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Misogyny, Not Epilogue Compliant, Parent Draco Malfoy, Parent Harry Potter, Past Rape/Non-con, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-03-25 18:43:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13840728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynds/pseuds/Lynds
Summary: Fill for post 109 on the Consent Fest: Draco tells Scorpius about his own experience of sexual abuse when teaching him about consent, and becomes involved with helping other parents teach their children about consent, and dealing with lad culture.Very kindly beta'ed by G and R ^_^





	1. Chapter 1

Draco nodded and smiled to parents and teachers as he walked through the end of term crowd to find his sons. He could see Harry at the other end of the hall talking to Daphne and her kids - he hoped they wouldn’t be held up too long. He just wanted to go home and relax on the sofa with a glass of wine, and hear how the term had been.

He caught sight of Scorpius, standing with a large group of other boys, and veered over towards him. He wondered if he and Harry had ever looked so ridiculous as teenagers, all deliberately dishevelled and too cool to stand straight. He had a sneaking suspicion that he, at least, had been terrible. Scorpius usually reminded him more of Harry, awkward and desperate to please.

Just as he was coming up to them, a girl he vaguely recognised walked past the group, and his son - his _son_ \- smacked her on the arse.

“Fuck off, Potter,” she growled, as his friends cackled with laughter.

Draco felt his own heartbeat rise with anger flooding his veins as the girl walked off her fists clenched and her face red. “What was that?” he snapped at Scorpius, fighting to keep his temper.

“Dad!” Scorpius looked up at him with his usual wide grin, but it fell away when he saw how angry Draco was.

Or maybe he didn’t. He can’t have seen how incandescently furious Draco was, because if he had, he never would have chuckled awkwardly, tugging at his blonde hair, and said “Ah, Dad, she was asking for it.”

“Who the fuck taught you to say that?” he spat, his voice a whipcrack, his lips thin and tingling with the blood drained from them. “Who taught you that was acceptable, Scorpius Malfoy-Potter? Because I know you didn’t learn it from me or your father.”

Scorpius’ eyes went wide and he dropped his attempt at the bad boy swagger. But Draco was vibrating and too far gone. “I must have missed the part where that girl asked you to touch her, because she didn’t look very fucking happy about it just then. How _fucking_ dare you? To touch another person is a privilege and you… you just assumed it was yours. What were you thinking?”

Draco was shaking all over and he knew if he didn’t spit his fury out he’d implode. He could see Scorpius’ lip trembling, see his little dickhead friends standing silent and wide-eyed for once, knew he’d gone too far, knew he had to stop, but if he did he would have to scream, scream to stop the memories flooding his pores.

Then Harry’s arms were tight around his shoulders and he was dragged into a classroom. “What the hell was that about?” he asked, his voice low and fierce. He would protect his boys from anyone, even Draco, and that was amazing, but right now… “I just turned round to see you screaming at Scorp in front of the whole school? Draco, what… I’ve never even seen you raise your voice at them.”

Draco was pacing hard, tearing at his hair and trying to hold the fragments together, but he couldn’t explain it to Harry. He physically couldn’t, because the scream was trapped in his throat and it was all he could do to get air past it into his lungs.

The door opened again and Hermione marched in. “Harry, go deal with Scorpius.”

“But—“

“He needs you. I’ll stay with Draco.”

He huffed, but nodded and left, sound from the hall blaring and then cut off as the door opened and shut. Draco felt the sinuous guilt sink in and add to the whirlwind of emotions.

Hermione came closer, but stopped just out of reach. “Draco… can I give you a hug?”

Her gentle voice brought him to a stop, and he looked at her sympathetic face with horror and cold certainty. “You know.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what happened,” she said. “But I can tell something _did_. No offence, but most men don’t get so angry about that kind of casual misogyny. I can imagine Ron and Harry being angry with Scorpius, but from the point of view of ‘imagine that’s your sister or mum’. You… well, that was personal.”

He closed his eyes and felt his muscles still trembling, biting his lip to stop… something. Screaming or throwing curses or crying. Hermione took a step closer. “Hug’s still on offer if you want?”

He let out a vicious whoosh of breath and shook his head. “I don’t think I could handle the sympathy,” he admitted.

She hummed. “I get that. I’ll tell Harry to take the boys home.” Then she was gone, leaving him to compose himself. He felt a fierce rush of gratitude to the prim woman who meant so much to Harry. He told himself it was that affection that prickled behind his eyelids.


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing Draco did when he got home through the Floo in the staff room was find Scorpius, sitting on his bed with head down, eyes red rimmed. Draco’s heart flooded with guilt and love. “Hey,” he said softly, leaning on the doorjamb.

“Dad!” Scorpius jumped to his feet. “I’m so sorry. I apologised to Fenella, I swear. I didn’t think… I’m so sorry for - for disappointing you.”

His voice cracked and Draco couldn’t bear it, pulling him close and holding him tight as he sagged against Draco’s chest, crying quietly. Draco rocked him and pressed his cheek to Scorpius’ hair, not bothering to hold his own tears back. “I’m so sorry I yelled at you, Scorpius. I went too far.”

Scorpius squeezed him in reply. “Albus said I shouldn’t hang out with those guys any more.”

Draco bit his lip and resisted the urge to agree wholeheartedly. “That’s your decision to make, Scorpius. You can be friends with someone and not act like them. It’s hard, but you can. You’ve just got to do what you think is right.”

He nodded. “I knew it wasn’t a nice thing to do when I was doing it, I just… I’m sorry, Dad.”

He smiled as tears pricked his eyes and moved to the bed, Scorpius still pressed tightly to him like he was a clingy seven year old again. He’d always been so desperate to please, so empathic. Some days, the days when either Draco or Harry woke up angry and afraid from the nightmares, when they both tried so hard to hide it but couldn’t stop the snapping and flinching, Scorpius would follow them around practically glued to whichever one was hurting, even when Albus would keep to himself and call him away to play. Draco couldn’t stand it some days, the little boy constantly under foot when he was at the edge of his temper anyway, but he always tried his hardest to turn around and squeeze the little boy tight for a few minutes before asking for some space. 

Space wasn’t such a consideration right now. Scorpius plopped himself down on Draco’s lap and sniffled into the crook of his neck. Draco smiled as his son regressed a little, and let him forget he was a teenager. 

“Scorpius?” Harry was leaning on the door jamb, smiling like the soppy arse he was. “Are you OK?”

Scorpius nodded, his face still pressed to Draco’s shoulder.

“OK sweetheart. Do you want to go watch TV with Albus so I can talk to Dad?”

Scorpius slid off Draco’s lap like a gangly spider. He paused as he passed Harry. “I’m sorry, Father.”

Harry pulled him close and kissed the top of his head. “I know. I love you.”

Scorpius squeezed Harry’s waist before walking out of the door. Draco didn’t look up as Harry walked closer, and Harry didn’t say a word, just hesitantly rested his hand on the back of Draco’s head. He let out a long breath and leaned his forehead on Harry’s stomach, warm and firm. Harry chuckled and pulled his t-shirt up over Draco’s head so his face was pressed against his bare skin. He knew it was probably a bit weird, but he relaxed and closed his eyes, warm and safe and loved, and surrounded by Harry.

“I’ve got to tell you,” he said at last.

“Tell me what, love?”

He shook his head, pushed Harry’s t-shirt away so he could sit up, and smoothed his hair back down. “No. I mean, all of you.”


	3. Chapter 3

Albus and Scorpius were watching TV when Draco and Harry came downstairs. “Turn it off, please,” said Harry, moving some essays he’d been marking onto the floor. They must have both looked serious because even Albus didn’t moan.

“I want to explain to both - to all of you - why I got so angry today. I don’t want you to behave a certain way just out of fear of me. I want you to understand.”

He took a deep breath and clenched his hands on his knees. Harry covered his fists with his own hand and Draco jumped. “Just… not right now, OK? Don’t… don’t touch me.”

“OK,” said Harry softly. “Am I OK sitting here or—“

“Yeah, just. Don’t touch.” He cleared his throat and stared at the central pattern of the old carpet, finding the scorch mark Albus had made at eight, and Scorpius’ ink spill further along. Grounding himself. 

“When your father and I were still in Hogwarts, during the war, you know my family played host to… to Voldemort and his followers. His other followers.”

He heard Albus shifting impatiently and could tell Harry was glaring at him. They all knew this. History of Magic focused on the last war a lot, and Draco knew Albus hated the attention of having every one of his names mentioned in class.

He dug his nails into his palms. “When they brought back muggles and muggleborns they would…” he glanced at Harry. Were the boys too young for this? He swallowed. “They tortured them. It was expected of th- of _us_. But… most Death Eaters also… also enjoyed it. The women, they always had it worst. Didn’t matter what they’d done, what else they were, they…”

He stopped and swallowed hard, putting shaky hands over his face. “I remember the day I noticed. I remember… being grateful. Because I was a man. And… and I want you boys to think about that. Think about the kind of privilege we have just because of what’s between our legs. What men do, what men say to women. What those boys say to the girls. That’s a power play. That’s reminding them that you’ll always come out on top because you’re male, no matter whether they’re more clever, more sporty, more well liked. It’s not about clothes. It’s not some twisted compliment, it’s power. And when they run out of women? When the powerful are bored… they turn on the next in the food chain and… and sometimes that’s a teenage boy who thought he ruled the school.”

The room was silent around Draco’s sobs, and he wiped fiercely at his face and tried to get himself back under control. Then Scorpius was on his knees in front of him. “Can I hug you, Dad?” His voice was shaking and small, and Draco held out his arms, nodding. He fitted under his chin again like that. Albus jumped up and wrapped himself koala-like around his side, arms tight around his ribs. Draco held both his sons tight and looked over to Harry, who was vibrating with grief and anger. Before he could say anything, Albus reached out an arm and dragged Harry close. Draco could feel him trembling, feel silent tears where his face was pressed to the back of Draco’s neck.

***

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Harry whispered.

Draco sighed and linked his sleep-clumsy fingers with Harry’s where they were clenched in his pyjama shirt, right over Draco’s heart. “I wanted to forget it’d ever happened.”

“Did I…” He cleared his throat, thick from holding back tears. “Did I ever… If I did, God, I’m so sorry, Draco.”

Draco turned in the circle of his arms and cupped his cheek. Harry turned his face into the pillow and gulped. 

“Don’t equate what we do with what they did. Ever. We make love, we have sex, we fuck, Harry, even when it’s rough it is _nothing_ like… like that.”

His face remained pressed into the pillows, messy black hair standing up in tufts. Draco rubbed the base of his neck. “Sometimes,” he said softly, “I do have flashbacks. It’s… it’s usually nothing to do with what you’re doing or saying at the time but… there are times when I need a reminder that it’s you.”

His hand stroked over Harry’s shoulder to rest on the oval scar between Harry’s collarbones. The skin dipped there, he could feel it even while they were kissing. With the moonlight streaming in it looked almost the same colour as Draco’s fingertips, starkly contrasted with Harry’s warm brown skin. His thumb fitted it perfectly. It was like he’d left a piece of his own skin, his thumbprint, on Harry’s chest, and even though he knew what had really caused it, he couldn’t help secretly liking it. 

“Do you see?” he asked. “You make me feel safe. My mind pulls me back there for whatever reason.” He shrugged one shoulder. “To piss me off, I think, mostly. But if I can assure myself that I’m with you, if I can feel your scars or hear your voice, or see your ridiculous hair, the fear goes away. Sometimes it takes a moment or two, but you’re safe. You are safety. When my body tells me to run, it tells me to run _to you.”_


	4. Chapter 4

“Master, there is a delegation at the door,” Kreacher called up the stairs to him. Draco was slouching in his chair, his feet up on the desk, glaring at a formula for an oncogene suppressor he and Padma had been working on. The answer was so close! He groaned and stomped downstairs in his socks, rolling his eyes to see that Kreacher had closed the door in the visitor's face and wandered off, rather than waiting for Draco to come down, or actually take a message. Heaven forbid. 

His mind was still mostly occupied with the apoptotic properties of Madagascan periwinkle versus turmeric root, and whether Longbottom might be able to suggest any alternatives, so when he opened the door he just stood there blinking stupidly for a moment.

Hermione raised her eyebrows. “Draco? Is this a bad time?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, Merlin, sorry. I just… um, come in, all of you.”

As the women (eight of them! There were eight!) filed past him, he searched his memory frantically for something he’d forgotten. “Kreacher?”

“Master Draco.” The old elf snapped into being in front of him, bowing low. Draco did a little double take and bit his lip. Albus and Scorpius must have been shopping again, because Kreacher was wearing two tea towels pinned together, one with every single garden bird in Britain moving around on it in a dizzying riot of colour, and the other a map of the Isle of Man, with the triskelion spinning in the centre of his back. He was never sure which had come first, Kreacher’s love of bright colours, or the boys’ obsession with buying him the most garish tea towels and pillowcases available, as Kreacher still flat refused clothing.

“Please bring tea and biscuits up to the parlour. Oh… and Kreacher?”

“Yes, Master?”

“Harry hasn’t mentioned hosting a PTA meeting, has he?”

“No, Master Draco. Kreacher will bring the plain biscuits to punish the interlopers for arriving unannounced. No respect for tradition, these young witches.”

“No, that’s fine, Kreacher, bring the good ones, really.”

“Master is too kind,” he muttered loudly. “Master should have a firmer hand.”

His voice faded as he walked to the kitchen, and Draco rubbed the bridge of his nose. Passive aggressive bloody elf. 

He straightened his spine and walked to the parlour. “So…” he said, looking around at the array of women scattered across the room. 

Hermione stood up. Of course she did. He wasn’t sure whether to be more or less anxious. “Draco. We’re sorry for dropping in unannounced like this, but we have a proposition for you, and we don’t want its importance to be understated.”

“That sounds intimidating,” he joked weakly, glancing at the others. Ginny smirked at him, her leg flung over the arm of her chair. Luna was deep in conversation with Kreacher about the birds on his teacloth, but the others all looked terrifyingly intense.

“We want you to talk to the boys about consent,” said Hermione, and Draco’s eyebrows shot into his hair. “We were thinking of small groups, maybe year one and two together, then year three and four, and so on, but you don’t need to make the talks too significantly different. The Q and A session at the end will be the most important, and small groups separated by age should make it easier for them to ask awkward questions. Come on, sit down,” she said, waving him over to one of his own chairs with such authority that he obeyed without a word. She started pacing, not looking at him, her usual bossiness even more rapid fire than usual. “We were thinking we’d keep the talks close together, maybe spread them out over a week or so, and of course it would have to fit in with your work—“

“Hermione,” he interrupted at last. “Can I just… what?”

She frowned. “Consent talks. We want you to give them.”

“Why? Why me?”

“Because it’s obviously important to you, and you’ve already yelled half of one across the school hall,” grinned Ginny.

“No, but…” he twisted his fingers together, frowning. “Why _me?_ It’s important to a lot of people. It’s obviously important to all of you. I know what mansplaining is, at least two of you have given me a lecture on it. Shouldn’t a talk about something that statistically threatens women more than men be given by a woman?”

Ginny sat forwards, her elbows on her knees. “The girls will be given a partner talk about seeking consent, giving it when they want to, and being absolutely clear that if there’s doubt from either party, there’s no consent. That’ll be run by Lavender and me. But the boys - as much as we wish it wasn’t true, they’re going to need to hear it from a man.”

“If they’ve already absorbed the kind of misogyny that sees them pinching bums and catcalling, they’re not going to listen to a woman say how much we all hate it,” added one of the muggle mums, Dani Henderson. “My daughter came home spitting bullets last term because one of her classmates had been going round undoing bra straps through the girls’ robes. She yelled at him, and you know what he did? He laughed and told her to ‘calm down, dear’.”

Draco winced, remembering the slap he’d got from Pansy for using a similarly patronising line. But all the other women shook their heads, or sighed and rolled their eyes. “How am I supposed to do justice to this?” he asked. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have that much of a female influence. I’m gay and I have two sons, for Merlin’s sake.”

“We don’t want you to tell them how women feel about it,” said Ginny. “Women tell them all the time. I think we’ve established that they don’t give a shit. We want them to hear what you’ve been through, whatever it was. What it’s like for one of them to be on the receiving end.”

“We know it’s a lot to ask,” Hermione said. 

He stared at her. She was perched on the arm of Millicent’s chair, twisting her fingers together and not looking at him, and he was surprised at the strength of the betrayal he felt. “You told them?”

“No, Draco,” said Lavender. “No, Hermione never told us anything. She didn’t want to ask you, actually.”

“We didn’t realise Hermione knew anything about you,” said Dani. She glanced at Hermione apologetically. “We talked her into it. We just all saw how you reacted in the hall, and all the things you said… it was obvious you had some experience of consent issues yourself. Of being on the receiving end of that kind of attention.”

Draco dug his fingernails into his knees, feeling the slight tremor start up. “You want me to tell a bunch of teenage boys I was raped by Death Eaters at their age?”

There were eight identical intakes of breath. “Oh… oh God, Draco, I didn’t…”

“I wouldn’t have put your name forward if—“

“We thought it had just been unwanted attention or—“

“Or fear of it.”

“Draco, are you OK? We’re so, so sorry.”

He took a deep breath and linked his fingers together, twisting them so hard the bones hurt, and stared at the carpet. “I don’t think it’ll work anyway,” he said, keeping his voice perfectly level. “You’re asking me to do this because I’m a man, also maybe because I was a little shit in school too.” Ginny chuckled softly, but she was the only one. The others were still looking at him like he was going to shatter in front of them. Like he already was. He forced himself to stay solid with pure spite and will. “But they’re going to look at me and think ‘that doesn’t apply to me, I’m not a fag’. And we’ll be back to square one with them all wondering if I was asking for it, dressing slutty or flaunting my skinny gay arse.”

His knuckles were white, the skin stretched tight over them, and his lips curled up into a snarl. Luna, humming softly, stood and plopped herself at his feet, her back pressed against one shin. The sudden contact made him blink and relax slightly. He looked down at her, but she was completely absorbed in her biscuit, twisting the two halves apart and scraping out the white filling with her front teeth like Albus used to as a little boy.

Hermione sat on the coffee table across from him, her brown eyes wide with sincerity. “Draco, I’m so… I’m sorry. We’ll go in a minute, but I just… I can’t leave you thinking that anyone believes that of you.”

He snorted. “Hermione, you forgave my family for torturing and trying to kill you. You forgave me for years of being disgustingly racist and an all around arse. Of course you don’t think that of me. You’re actually the only person I know who’s more of a crusader than Harry. But you’re naive if you think that’s not a thought others will have. It’s what my father would have said.”

“I think you’re forgetting one crucial thing about these kids,” Ginny piped up. “And that’s Harry. The saviour of the wizarding world, their favourite DADA and quidditch teacher, is also queer.”

Hermione nodded. “Since Harry came out as bi, the consensus towards the LGBTQIA community has become overwhelmingly supportive, and wizards who identify as straight are actually in the minority, particularly in the younger age bracket.”

“And these kids have never known anything different. You two have been together their entire lives.”

He snorted. “That makes me feel old.”

Ginny smirked, then looked serious again. “That’s not to say you should or you have to talk to them. We wanted the boys to think like you, think like us, but we didn’t realise why you thought that way.”

“Yes, sorry,” he said sarcastically. “I wasn’t born a good person, I had it hammered into me.”

“Still not sure you’re actually a good person, Malfoy,” she snarked back, and he grinned.

He rubbed his temples, sighing. “I’ll think about it,” he said at last.

“Wh- you will? Really?” said Hermione. “You know you don’t have to.”

He glared at her. “Did you come to convince me or not, Granger?”

“Not if it’s going to trigger you,” she said.

He snorted. “We all lived through the war. Ms Henderson excepted, we spend half our lives being triggered.”

Dani looked around, eyebrows raised as the others nodded. “The hell have I married into?” she muttered.

“Are you sure, Draco?” asked Lavender. “We could ask Blaise or Ron, or even Harry. Like Ginny said, he’s already their favourite teacher. It doesn’t even have to be personal, it was selfish of us to try to capitalise on whatever made it personal for you. We didn’t think it was going to be…”

“That bad? Bit difficult to quantify, really.”

She looked more unimpressed than a fluffy pink woman should be capable of. “Rape is pretty fucking awful no matter how you quantify it, Draco. I just thought someone had grabbed your arse or something, maybe you were threatened. You know, the stuff we’ve all been through.”

Draco stared. “All of you? Really?”

All the women nodded. Some even laughed. “Yeah, Draco, it’s pretty standard,” said Ginny.

“Even you?”

“‘Even’ me? Yes, Draco, even though I embody many traditional male traits, I have also had my tits and arse grabbed. The blokes involved are missing a few teeth, of course, but I still get it. And being in the public eye makes it worse. Now I get rape threats by howler if I don’t score enough quaffles.”

Draco’s jaw dropped, but Hermione, Astoria and Dani were nodding too. “ _Really?_ ” he squeaked.

Dani frowned. “Do men actually not know this?”

“I don’t know if I’m exactly representative, I’m surrounded by only men about eighty percent of the time.”

Luna nodded. “Yes, that does sound representative.”

He stared at them, then at the carpet. Thinking of how his son (his _own son_ ) had been one of those men. Thinking of how much, and how little it had taken, in the grand scheme of things, to remind him how wrong it was.

“OK,” he said quietly. “I’ll give it a try.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic ended up being focused very heavily on misogyny and how consent seems, on the surface, to be a very different issue for men and women. Women tend to be exposed to a more threatening attitude towards ownership of their body, and consent is often something terrifyingly important. And when a man has his agency ripped away like that, they've got to deal with internalised misogyny and in Draco's case a certain amount of internalised homophobia, that in some way he had to deserve it. But I also wanted him to have survived one of the most horrific experiences and be in most ways stable and LIVING, rather than just surviving


End file.
